


Leave Me To Dream

by Social_Cocoon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Healing, It'll start out sad but it'll have a happy ending, Past Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Trespasser, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Very OC-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21741982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Social_Cocoon/pseuds/Social_Cocoon
Summary: All Nesiaris wants to do is sleep, because she cannot handle what will happen when she wakes up.
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

Nesiaris was dreaming again. She was in a forest, alone and yet not alone at all. There were others in the forest with her, but not near her. She could hear them whooping and laughing, taunting and jeering at each other. She sent out a taunt of her own as she took a running jump from a log and onto the thick branch of a tree. They were racing, her and her clanmates. First one to the base of the mountain won.

It wasn’t the first time she had run this course, nor would it be the last. She quickly jumped from one tree to another with ease, springing from the thinnest of branches without leaving even a crack behind. Another figure flew past her, then turned around and stuck her tongue out. Briaren, of course. Briaren grinned, winked, and released a strong burst of wind from her hands, both giving her a boost and slowing Nesiaris down just a bit.

 _Cheater_ , Nesiaris thought, but she knew the path Briaren would take. It was the one she always took, and Nesiaris knew that she would hit a large, thick patch of trees all clumped together, forcing her to slow down as she carefully maneuvered her way around them. Nesiaris could overtake her if she went a different way.

So, she did, as she had many times before.

She turned to the left and began making a long, wide curve through the forest. Behind her the others stayed on their straight paths. Their laughter was as close as ever, though.

She continued to go left, left, left, and the ground below got darker, darker, darker. She had just begun to turn into the curve when something rustled under her feet, and it was not the sound of another elf. It was larger, heavier. Nesiaris stopped. She looked down, squinting into the darkness below. There was a shape there, large and animalistic. A bear? But it didn’t move like a bear.

Curious, she made to step onto the tree in front of her so she could get a better look.

 _“You’re going too far!”_ her clanmates called, their voices right beside her. _“That’s the forbidden part of the forest, you’re not allowed in there. You know that,”_ they said, a chorus of whispers in her head. They sounded like themselves, and not like themselves at all.

The shape moved, turning towards her. As it did, a spike of fear lanced through her heart, and she spared the shape no second glance as she turned and ran away, back along the detour she’d taken. She tried to put it out of her mind. It did not go away.

She did know that part of the forest was forbidden. Something ancient and impossibly powerful lived in there. Ancient, powerful, and evil, so said the Keeper. No one who entered came out, and the rarities that did were never the same. Nesiaris chastised herself for not being more mindful of the border, even if she hadn’t known exactly where it was in the first place. Everyone else knew. How did she not?

The alternate route through the forest was much faster than the straight line she’d been on before, and she reached the edge of the forest before lone. She stopped on the last tree at the very edge, preparing to jump down, when again something caught her eye. It was something big and dark and gray, all the way up the mountain. She looked up, squinting, waiting until the features of this something sharpened and defined themselves. It was a stone building with fortifications and a long bridge connecting to a tower that stood in front of the main structure. A castle, she realized, but she didn’t remember ever seeing it before. Where had it come from? Who had put it there?

She resolved to ask the others when she met up with them again, but as she dropped down and jogged to where they were all supposed to meet, the castle faded out of her mind. So did the dark shape in the forest. Eventually, she couldn’t remember having seen either of them at all. It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. All that mattered was her family who greeted her with bright smiles and tight hugs and teased her about being a slowpoke.

Nesiaris had dreamt this dream many times and would dream it many more. It was her favorite dream, one of the few that gave her the greatest feeling of happiness and calm. It was her refuge from the nightmares that plagued her waking days and those that seeped into her too short nights. If it were up to her, she’d stay in this dream and others for the rest of eternity, even once the world started to burn around her.


	2. Chapter 2

Nesiaris woke when the sun was already well across the sky, as she tended to do quite often nowadays. She had not wanted to wake up, of course not, but someone else did. Her mother, Filora, was leaning over her, gently prodding her awake and softly calling her name. She waited patiently while Nesiaris came to, which was a slow and arduous process for the both of them. Nesiaris’ new instinctive reaction was to fight off wakefulness, in part because she herself didn’t want to be awake and in part because her dreams didn’t want her to. They’d held her under their spell for countless hours and were not so keen on letting her go.

As for herself, Nesiaris hated waking up to the world she lived in. It was such a stark contrast to the ones her mind could make up that returning to it was like a slap across the face and a stab through the heart and a shock through a missing limb. It _hurt_ , and she wanted to stop hurting so much.

But, because it was her mom, she didn’t give in to sleep again as easily as she wanted to. She fought against the fighting and in time came awake, though not _fully_. She hadn’t been fully awake for a while, but that haze wasn’t something she was ready to give up yet.

For now, she was awake enough to not make her mom worry. Well, no more than she already did. Nesiaris couldn’t do anything about that. That…would require her to be better. Normal, or some form of it, but being ‘normal’ again would take a long time, and she wasn’t ready for starting that process yet either.

Filora helped her sit up in her bed. She didn’t need it, but she let her help anyway. One time she hadn’t, and though Filora had tried to hide it, she’d still caught the dejected look in her mother’s eyes, and, well…that hurt her, too. Nesiaris couldn’t be ‘normal’ right now, but she could at least try not to make Filora any more worried or stressed than she already was, in whatever small ways possible. She knew, too, that Filora felt helpless, not knowing how to help her daughter because she didn’t even know what exactly was wrong, just that she was deeply, deeply hurting. Small things were the only things she _could_ do, and what she could do she would do. It was just how she was. It didn’t hurt Nesiaris any to let her.

Once Nesiaris was completely up Filora set a small tray over her lap and placed a bowl of stew on top of that. She sat at the edge of Nesiaris’ bed and stayed there while Nesiaris ate. However, Filora’s hands were the hands of a cratsmaster, and they ached to move and work. So, while Nesiaris ate her little mechanical bites and swallowed without tasting, Filora set to work on removing the knots and tangles in Nesiaris’ hair. It was a pointless effort as her work would just be undone when Nesiaris went back to sleep, but it was something. To Nesiaris it was somewhat comforting, and if she closed her eyes she could pretend she was in a dream again, somewhere nice and far away, and her mother was braiding her hair instead of undoing the ratty mess it was in.

Then, of course, Filora would hit a particularly nasty knot and the fantasy would pop like a bubble.

Few words passed between them, but it matted that any words passed at all. When Nesiaris had first arrived, she’d spent all her words on the first two days, and only gave them to her mother and aunt. She had been well into her downward cycle by then, however, and it took a great amount of energy to keep her head clear long enough to get out what she could stomach telling them. When she wasn’t sobbing, that is. After that was when she succumbed fully to sleep’s sweet reprieves, and when she finally woke up she had become more or less mute. She refused to see anyone but her mother (which, well, this _was_ her mother’s aravel. She couldn’t kick her out even if she wanted to) and Malwyn, the clan’s hearthmaster, and even Malwyn’s visits were kept short and formal. For the better part of a month she’d only responded in grunts and hums, if she responded to anything at all. She’d only started speaking again recently, and even then only in small bits.

Filora did most of the talking for her, anyway. Sometimes she would tell her about the goings on within the clan, though her news rarely extended far beyond it simply because Nesiaris did not want to know about the world outside of her clan. Often the stories were of successful hunts full of ridiculously embellished details (how else would anyone tell them, after all?), or of young apprentices being moved up in whatever area of work they’d chosen, or of a young elf receiving their vallaslin –

Ah, vallaslin…

Filora had finished fixing Nesiaris’ hair and Nesiaris had finished eating as much as her stomach could take. Filora gently pushed her to eat more, as she had already gotten thin by the time she’d arrive back at the clan and was only getting thinner by the day, and Nesiaris did try, but she was sure she would puke if she ate any more. She was doing better than she had been, at least. She could almost eat half a bowl now. But then, her mother always gave her bowls that were too big in the first place.

Filora stood and took the bowl and tray away. She leaned down and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I’ll be right downstairs if you need me,” she said, and her tone indicated that she hoped she’d been needed. Nesiaris just nodded.

Filora left and Nesiaris laid on her back and closed her eyes. She couldn’t go immediately back to sleep now that she was awake, but it wouldn’t take too long. Still, she hated the waiting, because she hated the…quiet. It _wasn’t_ quiet outside, not at all. She could hear other elves running around and working and talking. Shortly after Filora left, she could hear the sounds of the forge below and Filora talking with her apprentice, Lani. The world wasn’t quiet, but something in her was, and it wasn’t supposed to be. For two years it had been like a constant hum in her head, so for it – _them_ to be quiet was unnerving. Scary, even, because she didn’t know what she’d done, or if he –

_He_

Nesiaris bit the inside of her cheek and immediately ended that line of thought. Her hand moved to press against the stump that was all the remained of her left arm as an invisible shock ran through it, and through the rest of it that was no longer there. Then she immediately ripped her hand away. She turned on her side, pulled the covers tight over herself, and listened to the rhythmic pounding of metal on metal below her until she finally faded back into her dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

Nesiaris was having a nightmare.

She was in a small, small room. There were no windows; those had been taken away from her. There was no furniture, either. There was a door, but it was locked, and no matter how loud she screamed or how hard she beat against it, it would not unlock. _They_ would not unlock it.

The room was small and cold and dark and empty, save for one thing.

Nesiaris sat curled up against the far wall and stared at the sword at the other end of the room. Hilt and blade were pure gold, the top of the hilt shaped in such a way that it looked like a dragon that was eating the blade, or maybe being pierced by it. From time to time the golden dragon blinked its emerald eyes at her, just watching. Waiting.

The people outside were waiting, too. The sword was for her, they said. It held a great power within it, with which she could shape the world. She had to take it. She _had_ to.

She knew, however, that they were lying. The sword was for them, not her. It had a great power, yes, she could feel as much – it _bled_ power – but she would not freely shape the world with it. If she took that sword, they would chain her and use her and bend her as they wished. She would cease to exist as her. She would _become_ the sword: a weapon and a tool to be used at their whim.

But of course, that answer did not satisfy them. She was the only one who could take the power, so she must. She _had_ to, and they would make sure she would. They’d shoved her into that room, locked her in, and would starve her out. She’d had no food for who knew how long. No water. No sleep. No anything but the sword with the golden, emerald-eyed wolf.

No – the eyes were red.

No. The dragon was red.

Someone banged against the door and yelled at her to hurry up and take it already. The world is dying, they said. Stop being selfish. You’re really going to kill yourself?

_Selfish_.

She bit her tongue.

_Knife-ear_.

But that was a whisper.

And then…and then someone was _in there_ with her. They had…always been there? Or, they were her captor? They were hidden under a long, long cloak, so she could not see them very well, but she knew underneath the hood that their face was wrong. They – he, she realized. It was a man (or, not quite a _man_. Something better. Something worse) – he was tall, taller than her. Impossibly tall.

He wanted her to do something, too, but different. “Give it to me,” he said, pointing with fingers that were more like claws to the sword beside her. Nesiaris refused to do this, too, because him having it was worse than her having it. He could not be chained.

“Give it to me,” he repeated again, his voice rattling through her. Selfish. Knife-ear. Thief.

She refused, and he lost his patience.

Child.

“Give it _to me!_ ”

He stepped forward, reaching for the sword with hands that were hands and not claws, and she saw them: his eyes. Pale blue, like ice.

And this time, she _screamed_ her refusal, and she _cried_. She slapped his hand away and reached back to shove the orb behind her so he couldn’t _ever_ have it.

And when she touched it, her arm exploded.

Nesiaris jerked awake and he hand fling to press against the stump of her arm, which had started to burn with a horribly familiar pain. In that moment between dreaming and wakefulness, that distorted liminal space of the mind, she forgot that her arm wasn’t really there. She could feel the stump, she could _feel_ where the arm ended and where the rest was missing, but she felt the pain more as it shot through non-existent nerves. She panicked and was, for a moment, transported back to another night. Countless nights, in fact, where she had woken up in just the same way with her hand bursting with lethal energy that she knew would eventually, finally, kill her. She assumed every night might have been her last. She panicked, because she didn’t want to die. She was conflicted, because she…

Maybe…

Nesiaris’ fingers brushed against the ugly, knarled scar that encompassed the base of the stump, and slowly her awareness began to return. She was still in her aravel, still in her own bed, not in some foreign room that didn’t belong to her in some bed that was so soft it nearly swallowed her.

The pain faded to a throb, but not completely. There was one particularly sharp shock that made her whole arm jerk. She flexed invisible fingers that weren’t there. Or, she tried, because despite what she knew, she could still _feel_ them. Then, because she couldn’t do it, she turned her face into the pillow and cried silent tears. Of course, she knew her arm was gone. Of course. It had been gone for a while now, and it would never be back. That didn’t keep her from hurting from the loss.

She wasn’t sure how long she cried, but it felt like a very long time before she stopped. She laid in the dark, her face still pressed against the wet spot on the pillow, and listened to the sounds around her while she calmed down. She could hear her mother quietly snoring from the aravel’s only other bed and felt a sense of relief that she had succeeded once again in not waking her for another night (not that many nights ended up like this, but enough of them did. Nesiaris had quickly learned to keep herself quiet in the aftermath of a nightmare, lest anyone wake up and worry more than they ought to). She could hear the gentle creak of the aravel’s wood as the wind pressed against it. Beyond that, she could hear crickets in the grass, and footsteps on the ground, and the quiet voices of young elves who were up to no good.

And in time, as the minutes turned to hours and she lay awake still, she could hear another voice, clear and close and gentle. It was singing something in a language she didn’t know, but it sounded vaguely like a lullaby.

She felt him beside her before she turned and saw him perched on the edge of the bed. He was watching his fingers, not her, singing his quiet and soothing song. The brim off his too-large hat kept his face covered, apart from his lips which seemed to barely move as he sang.

“It’s Chasind,” Cole said after the song was over, answering her unspoken question. He had a knack for that. “It’s supposed to help.”

Help to induce good dreams, or at least chase away nightmares. That’s usually what his visits were for nowadays. When she’d arrived back home with her clan, she’d asked him to leave her alone for a while because she needed it. He only broke the agreement when he thought he needed to. Or maybe sometimes simply because he wanted to.

Well. She didn’t really have the energy anymore to tell him off for it even if she wanted to. Besides, it was nice, sometimes, to have him near.

“Please sing it again,” she said in a quiet voice that had become a fragment of what it used to be in the past two months.

Cole turned to face her then, and where people might have flinched away at the sight of this gaunt young spirit/man with his sunken eyes and unnaturally pale skin, she felt only comfort. He stared at her for only a moment, studying her face in the dark, then nodded and turned away again. He sang, and Nesiaris listened and listened until she drifted off to sleep.

She had good dreams for the rest of the night. That night, at least.


	4. Chapter 4

For as long as Nesiaris could remember, there had been a mirror above the vanity. It was nothing special, like the ones with golden frames inlaid with diamonds or with the glass cut into unnecessarily complicated shapes that she’d seen out in the rest of the world (mostly in Orlais. Orlesians had a knack for turning even the simplest things into something ridiculous). It was just a simple, perfect oval that hung on the wall.

Or, it used to.

Nesiaris, when she had returned home this time, had found that she could not stand the sight of it, very literally. Just a glimpse of the mirror had made her sick, sent her head spinning, left her pale and trembling so badly that she’d very nearly fallen over. She’d wanted to smash it. Instead, she’d just turned it around so the glass pressed against the wall. If anything were to come out, it would just –

…But of course, it wasn’t that kind of mirror.

Still, it was _a_ mirror, and that was bad enough.

Filora had never mentioned it, nor did she ever give any indication that she’d noticed the change (but of course she had, because even little changes can’t go unnoticed in a home she’d been living in for decades). One day, maybe a week after Nesiaris had returned, the mirror had vanished. Nesiaris had tried not to linger on how much safer she felt afterward, or on how alarming that feeling was.

Nesiaris stared at the empty spot now while Malwyn massaged the stump of her arm. She didn’t look at that, either. It was…an ugly thing, and what it represented for her was uglier still. She kept it wrapped up, and only Malwyn was allowed to see it uncovered. Filora had, once, as had Keeper Deshanna. The looks on their faces made Nesiaris refuse to let them see it again. Malwyn, at least, had stayed professional about it. She’d seen far worse in her days as hearthmaster, and when she’d seen Nesiaris before, back when her arm was whole and her hand embedded with a pulsing, sinister green mark that shouldn’t have been there at all, she’d guessed that it might end up destroying part of her arm in the end anyway, if it didn’t kill her first.

“I’m more surprised we hadn’t had to amputate it earlier,” she said once, and even before then Nesiaris had sometimes wished that she actually had cut it off. Maybe if she’d done so years ago, she wouldn’t be in the mess she was in now.

Malwyn finished with the massage and then began with the exercises. Every day (or every other day if Nesiaris really wasn’t feeling up to it and was stubborn enough to not be persuaded) she came to help Nesiaris get used to life without half of one arm. She would make Nesiaris stretch out her left arm first, making her raise it and bring it forward, now back, make a circle, put it down, start over again. That went on for a few minutes. It was easy enough. Then, she would get Nesiaris to practice doing tasks with her one whole arm that she’d been so used to doing with both. The tasks were kept simple, but Nesiaris quickly became frustrated to the point of tears, not because she couldn’t do anything but because it took so much longer than she was used to. The slowness of it all just served to make her even more bitter about her arm being gone. She was quick to end that part, despite Malwyn’s protests. There was a block there that she was not ready to get past, and she wouldn’t force herself to. She’d yell at Malwyn to get out if she needed to. She never had, yet.

The last thing Malwyn did was have Nesiaris walk around the aravel’s cabin for a little so her legs didn’t weaken too much from her new habit of lying in bed all day. There wasn’t much space, but Nesiaris wasn’t ready to walk outside, either. She knew the others would stare, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Worse would be if they asked questions, and for all that she loved everyone in her clan she knew that there were some among them who were too damned nosy and too pushy for their own good. She did not want to have a breakdown in front of them all.

Malwyn couldn’t make her leave the cabin, anyway. No matter how hard she or Nesiaris’ mother tried. And Malwyn did try.

“It’s very beautiful out today. You should go enjoy it,” she said. It was framed as a gentle suggestion, but Nesiaris knew that underneath she wanted to command her to. Doctor’s orders and whatnot.

Nesiaris shook her head and turned to walk to the other end of the room, her back to Malwyn. Behind her, she heard a sigh.

“It’s not healthy for you to stay in here for so long.” She knew that. “You’ve gotten pale.” She had? She hadn’t noticed that. Malwyn paused. “You haven’t been eating like you should, either.”

“I’ve been eating what I can,” Nesiaris muttered dismissively.

“Nesiaris –” Malwyn gave a heavy, almost exasperated sigh. “Nesiaris, you’ll rot in here.”

Nesiaris reached the other end of the cabin and turned around. She met Malwyn’s eyes with a cold, glazy gaze. _Then I’ll rot_. Rotting seemed…nice, comparatively.

“Nesi, what happened to you out there? What aren’t you telling us? We’re all worried, every one of us, especially your mother. Everyone wants to help, to understand, but…”

She felt anger first, angry that she couldn’t just be left alone, that Malwyn had dared to try and use her mom to guilt her, but it was almost immediately replaced by the overwhelming fear of telling them anything about what had happened to her. She knew that what she would say would hurt them as much as it had hurt her (and still was hurting her), and she wouldn’t do that to them. She swallowed, though it took some effort, and said, “Please leave.”

Malwyn’s eyes widened a bit in surprise. She looked about to protest, but after a moment thought differently. Instead, she made one last plea. “Please come outside,” she said, motioning to the door. “Just right outside the door? You wouldn’t have to go any farther. Just for a little bit.”

That was when Nesiaris saw the pity and worry and pain clear as day in Malwyn’s eyes. It made her feel angry again, then betrayed, then sad, and then overwhelmingly ashamed. She _hated_ that look. Hated it so much. Everyone looked at her that way and she’d thought at least in her she’d be safe from it all, save for Filora. She’d though Malwyn was safe!

Or, maybe it was always there and she just hadn’t seen it because she hadn’t been paying attention. Her fault, again. She felt sick.

“Malwyn,” she said, as firmly as she could. “ _Leave_.” She would not go outside just to subject herself to the same damned look on every face that spotted her. She would not get up her mother’s hopes or Malwyn’s only for them to use it against her to keep pressuring her to go out more and more and more. She would _not_.

Malwyn pursed her lips, but she didn’t say anything else. She knew that Nesiaris wouldn’t budge. Nesiaris turned her back on the hearthmaster, in part to not have to look at how disappointed Malwyn was, and in part to hide the way her own lip trembled. She stayed very still until Malwyn left.

Once Nesiaris was all alone she crawled back into her bed, buried her face into her pillow, and sobbed, hating herself. She did not let Malwyn back in again.


	5. Chapter 5

Nesiaris was sitting under a tree, a very large, ancient tree that stretched towards the heavens and had snaking roots that were as tall as mountains. She lounged on one of the giant roots, one leg dangling over the side and humming quietly while the person beside her plucked lazily at a lyre. They were someone familiar, someone she dearly cared for, but she couldn’t tell who. She quickly decided, however, that it didn’t matter. She was just content with their company, and that was good enough.

The two of them sat side by side, performing their lazy, uneven song and watching the world turn slowly under them, good and quiet and peaceful. No conversation passed between them, just the way she wanted it to be. It made it easier to enjoy the moment, and to pretend that it was the only moment that ever was and would ever be.

And so she dreamt.

There was an envelope on the dresser at the end of Nesiaris’ bed, her name written on the front in a quick, messy scribble. The wax seal was still intact. Nesiaris stared at it but made no move to grab it. Eventually she would, and she’d stick it in the bottom drawer with all the rest of the unopened letters, but right now she just really didn’t want to get up.

The letters were a weekly occurrence. Sometimes there were many, sometimes only one or two, but there was always one like this, one with a red seal imprinted with the image of a stylized dragon. The others came less frequently, some even seeming to have stopped completely, but there was always one from Varric, every single week. Nesiaris did feel bad that she hadn’t replied, or even opened any of them, but…she couldn’t handle the reminders of the past few years right now, or any talk about the Exalted Council or what would they do about _him_ or anyone else saying how worried they were and asking her to please talk to them and whatnot. It would just make her wanted to talk to them even less.

Maybe if she stayed quiet long enough, they’d forget about her and stop sending things. It might hurt them, this long silence of hers, but maybe it was for the best. She could pretend that she’d never ever left her clan, that this little bubble was all she’d known her whole life, that she hadn’t met a wise-cracking dwarf or a set of charming mages or a mischievous elf with a penchant for bees or a qunari who was very unlike anything she’d ever imagined a qunari to be like. She could pretend she hadn’t been friends (or at the least, friendly) with who was now the Divine. She could pretend she’d never made friends with shemlen or had any involvement in their affairs, and they could all pretend they’d never met her, either. Maybe the Inquisitor in their head could be some good little obedient human girl who everyone respected and was a true champion for their human god. She held up their values, their beliefs, their wants. Perfect.

Ah, but they’d never do that. At the very least, they’d always remember as she was. They weren’t so cruel as to turn her into a human in their minds the way others had, or at least had tried to. They weren’t cruel at all, her friends. Not to her. That’s why they continued to write, all of them. Even those she’d butted heads with were good enough to keep her in memory as she was.

She was the cruel one, then. Maybe one day she’d feel properly guilty. Not now.

Nesiaris sighed and finally slipped out of bed, but only for a moment. She opened the drawer and stuck the letter inside, not bothering to glance at the others before slamming it closed again. Then she climbed back into bed, pulled the covers over herself tight, and spent the rest of her waking hours imagining a better world while a stone shell grew over her gently aching heart.


	6. Chapter 6

Nesiaris was in a library. It was ancient and otherworldly in its splendor, with shelves of pure, softly glowing white wood that reached up into the heavens and walkways made of glittering gemstones and books bound in gold and silver that whispered their secrets upon being opened. Trees sprouted from the ground, some completely bronze with shining emerald leaves and others that dropped low enough that their leaves provided a curtain for one to escape behind for privacy, and all of them harbored firebugs that glowed different colors according the mood of a passing patron. A large stream cut through the center of the library, clear as crystal and with fish the colors of dusk and dawn swimming inside of it. Like the books, the fish whispered their own secrets as they passed, but Nesiaris hadn’t quite mastered their bubbling language yet and so their knowledge was lost on her for now.

The library was full of colorful patrons as well, from elves (some shorter than her, others as tall as qunari!) and dwarves (most notably a young female dwarf with bright red hair whom Nesiaris was certain lived in the library as she’d never seen her leave it) to stags and foxes and ghosts and fairies. There were demons, too, but they had no interest in harming anyone. There were also humans, though most of them were Avvar. There were even a few qunari who were very quiet and kept to themselves mostly, but they were very polite when approached. There was a wolf lazing under the shape of one of the trees and a halla that read out of a large open tome in the middle of the library, so engrossed in the story that it constantly wet the pages with its nose after leaning in too close (and was then promptly scolded by a passing librarian).

Today Nesiaris was looking for a certain book, but she wasn’t sure what book. She’d called mountains of them from the shelves and read through each one, but she’d read though them all once before already and already knew they didn’t have what she was looking for. Still, it didn’t hurt to check.

One of the librarians noticed her eventually and floated over the where she sat. It was a spirit, as all the librarians were because a good librarian could only ever be a spirit, and the library didn’t tolerate bad librarians. This spirit was the color of the morning just before sunrise.

“What are you looking for?” they asked.

“A book that’s supposed to help me. I lost something,” Nesiaris explained.

“Lost what?”

“I don’t know. I lost it.”

“Well, that’s no good.”

“The book is supposed to help me remember.”

The spirit hummed thoughtfully. “I can help you. I know every book in this library.”

“That would be nice. It’s getting very frustrating.”

The spirit nodded and drifted away, reprimanding the young halla yet again as it passed. It came back only a few minutes later, carrying with it a book that looked very, very plain and unusually ordinary compared to all the others in the library. It was brown and somewhat worn, and its pages were just starting to turn yellow. The spirit set it down in front of her, and she was quick to snatch it up, vibrating with excitement. _This_ was what she’d been looking for, she could feel it! Gently, she pulled back the cover.

Inside, tucked in a little square hollow carved into the pages, was a mirror.

In an instant she sprang out of her chair, the book dropping from her fingers like it was on fire. When the book hit the ground, the mirror shattered.

So did the library.

Filora woke Nesiaris again, again to give her something to eat.

“Your hair’s getting so long,” she noted while she was brushing it out. Nesiaris grunted in response. “Hey, so, me and a few of the others are going to Wycome today. It’s just trade stuff, they’ve got a pretty impressive market despite being a primarily elven city now. You’d think that most places would stop doing business with them. Which, well, they _did_ , but it helped that that Tethras fella publicly supported them – us? Is it us now? – and has kept Kirkwall as a good ally, makes others a lot braver about doing the same. And, well…” She trailed off, but Nesiaris knew what she was going to say: _And because of you._

Usually reference to her time as Inquisitor left her feeling bitter and yearning to change the subject immediately, but on occasions like this when her influence had been used to help elves (or really anyone that wasn’t a human, though human mages sometimes got a pass) it didn’t make her as frustrated. They were why she’d taken up the mantle in the first place, after all; she’d refused it outright when it had been brought up the first time, even gone so far as to walk out of the public ceremony when they’d tried to force it on her (boy, had Cassandra been embarrassed). It had only been when she’d overheard some of the elves within the Inquisition talking about how they would have liked to see one of them in a position like that that she even gave it any consideration beyond a firm ‘no’, and eventually did take on the title and all its responsibilities. Only for them.

Did she hate her time as Inquisitor?

Yes. Absolutely.

But she would never regret the influence it had on elven communities. Wycome would never have been allowed to get to the point it was now, and even if it had it would have immediately been taken back by the humans who’d once lived there, or if not them then another nearby city. Many elves would have been killed in the retaliation and those who weren’t would have been subjugated more fiercely than before and shoved right back into the slums. The fact that the Inquisitor had placed protection over the city and that her family lived on its outskirts kept that from happening, and it led others who had wanted to curry favor with her to start by showing favor to the city and the Lavellan clan first, to prove their supposed good intentions. Of course, things might change now that the Inquisition was no more, but Nesiaris hoped that her influence would keep the city safe for a long time.

Or at least for however long they had left.

_That_ made her feel bitter.

Filora continued. “Anyway, I’m just bringing this up because I was going to ask if maybe you wanted to come along? Just for a quick visit.”

The answer was an automatic shake of Nesiaris’ head, but that was to be expected. Filora, at least, didn’t look as disappointed this time.

“Well, I’ll find something nice to bring you back anyway.”

“Thanks,” Nesiaris muttered.

They fell back into silence, but only for a moment. Eventually Filora sighed, and it was the sort of sigh that told Nesiaris that she was about to say something, and that something would not be pleasant. So, she braced herself for whatever bad was coming. It would most likely be about her, and she was sick of things being about her all the time.

“You know, Nesi,” Filora started, still working on Nesiaris’ hair. Then she said the words “when your father died”, and Nesiaris’ heard sank. That wasn’t a topic either of them liked to bring up often.

“When your father died, I…well, you know I wasn’t the best then. We were both hurting so badly, and I didn’t know what to do about either of us. I didn’t know how to handle the grief. I didn’t want to show you, y’know? You were dealing with it as hard as I was, and I didn’t want you to have to see me…like I was.” She sighed again. “What’s more, I didn’t know what to do about you. Deyhnon had always been better at emotional stuff than me, and I did try, but I don’t think I tried hard enough.

“I’m bringing this up because, well, the way you are now reminds me of how you were back then. You didn’t talk, barely came outside, stayed in bed all the time…and I didn’t do enough to help you. I mean, I’ll admit it seems worse now, and it’s much scarier because I really don’t know _how_ to help. I don’t know what exactly is wrong, or if it’s even something I can help with at all. But, I do want to. I think last time I didn’t talk with you as much as I should have, to help you through the grief that way, but I’m more willing and capable this time. I do wish you’d tell me what happened, or at least as much as you’re comfortable with. If I know what happened to have hurt you like this, maybe I could…I don’t know, I could make something better somehow? Or it could take some of the stress off of you. So…please talk to me? If you’re okay to.”

At that moment Nesiaris was beyond glad that Filora was sitting behind her. From the moment Filora’d brought up Nesiaris’ father, her eyes had started to sting horribly, and it took all her will to keep the tears from spilling over and to keep her breathing as even as possible. Harder still when Filora asked to be told about what had gone on during the Exalted Council. Once again, the answer was an automatic shake of her head.

She _couldn’t_ tell her mom what had happened, because not everything affected just her. The one thing that had been a truly personal blow, to find out the truth about someone she’d trusted and cared about deeply and intimately (whose name was now like bile in her throat), was too shameful to tell any one of her people. She’d asked herself too many times already how she could have been so stupid, and to hear those words from her family would destroy her.

Did she think Filora would call her stupid? No. But she’d get a look on her face that would mean the same thing, more or less, and how could Nesiaris face that?

Aside from that, so much of what she’d gone through and learned those few months ago concerned more than just her – it concerned _all_ of the Dalish, and to tell them that? To tell them the beliefs and supposed truths they’d lived by were all built on lies? How could she do that? To her mom? Her aunt? Her friends? She hadn’t even told them about the truth behind vallaslin! That alone would shatter their pride and sense of self, if they even chose to believe what she said. And if they didn’t, they’d all accuse her of lying, of giving in too easily to the words of a trickster and an outsider, of flattening her ears, and so on. The very thought of having to tell them terrified her to her to her core.

Nesiaris shook her head again.

Filora sighed, but it wasn’t angry or disappointed, just accepting. Not happy, but not mad either. “I thought so. I won’t push, but know that I’m always ready to listen whenever you’re ready to tell, even if it’s not ‘til I’m all old and senile.”

Nesiaris didn’t feel up to smiling at the joke, not even a little.

Filora got up shortly after, and even when Nesiaris turned to face her she didn’t see any traces of frustration or exasperation on her mother’s face. Just…gentle understanding, as much as she could understand. Filora smiled and ran a hand along the finished braid in Nesiaris’ hair. “I love you, da’lath. Never forget that,” she muttered, placing a kiss on Nesiaris’ forehead. Then she left, and Nesiaris was free to cry.


	7. Chapter 7

Nesiaris stopped and stared at the patch of dark trees in front of her. She was at the edge of the safe part of the forest again, and before her was the forbidden zone. She wasn’t allowed in there, she knew that, and she wasn’t going to go in. She just…wanted to look, that’s all. But she wouldn’t go in. She’d heard the stories about the fairies that lured children inside to never come out again, and of the unnaturally beautiful men and women that seduced travelers off of the path, and of the fruits on the trees and bushes that were so sweet that people couldn’t help eating more and more until there were none left and they flew into a desperate rage. She’d heard about the trees that shifted their positions every night, and of the wanderer who made small talk with anyone he came across, stealing their memories as they conversed.

And she had heard of the beast that killed every single unlucky traveler.

She stood still up high in the trees, holding onto one with an iron grip. Her eyes were trained on the darkness below her and the shape that she was certain was moving within it. The Beast ruled this part of the forest, she’d heard. All the forest’s denizens, what little there were, worshipped it. The travelers they trapped were taken as offerings to the Beast. Were it to escape the confines of this part of the forest, she was sure it would devour the whole world. It was only an old and ancient magic that kept the Beast in.

Too bad it couldn’t keep people out. But, that’s what the stories were for, and the stories were what kept Nesiaris from crossing the threshold. That shape, however, was what kept her near still. Though she couldn’t clearly see it, she could feel well enough that it was something old and powerful, and the feeling of that power was enough to mesmerize her. It was so strange, like nothing she’d ever felt before, but in the back of her mind she was sure –

The shape turned and suddenly the power pulled taught and spiked through her, taking the air out of her lungs. _It was looking at her._

She turned and ran as fast as she could.

Nesiaris sat curled against the wall beside her bed, staring at the bow hanging on the wall to her right. It was beautifully made and had been crafted with obvious love and care, and though it was quite old (just a bit older than Nesiaris, in fact) and hadn’t been used in years, it was kept in such perfect condition that no one would have been able to guess its age had they not already known.

This bow had belonged to Nesiaris’ father, Deyhnon. Filora had made it as a wedding gift, and half of Nesiaris’ memories of him were with the bow on his back or in his hands. It was one of his most prized possessions. After he’d died, Filora had mounted the bow on the wall right beside the head of the bed she’d shared with him. Little pieces of him were scattered around the aravel, from carvings to sketches to old poems he’d written on idle days, but this was the biggest and most treasured of all of them.

Nesiaris had sat in this very same spot doing this very same thing many times before, though she’d been much smaller back then. When she was younger and Deyhnon’s death had still been fresh, the presence of the bow had brought both heartache and comfort. She would sometimes very carefully take it down from the wall and hold it close for a long time, pressing her face close so she could smell the mix of halla and elfroot that had always hung on him. The scent had faded away now.

Though a small part of her ached to hold the bow in her arms again, she stayed where she was. She was more preoccupied with her thoughts of her dad than the need to feel close to him again, because today she was wondering…

Wondering…

Wondering what happened after death. What really happened. The Dalish believe that when they died, the god Falon’Din would appear to guide them through the Beyond and into the afterlife. What awaited them differed from clan to clan and person to person. Some thought that at the very end of is all the elf’s soul was simply reincarnated. Others believed that the reward for making it through the journey would be to live in Arlathan as it had been, side-by-side with family and friends and even with their ancestors and the other ancients. Along with those were many who believed that all the gods were present in the afterlife, now available to answer all the questions of the people who had worshipped them their whole life.

But Nesiaris…she had learned a very disturbing truth, or what she could only assume was the truth, and now knew – thought? Could she know? – that the gods weren’t…well…

It was hard to admit even to herself.

But, if the gods _weren’t_ , then what did that mean for the people who died? If there was no one to guide them, but also no agents of Dirthamen to lead them astray, what happened? Was there anything? Was there nothing? It wasn’t a subject she’d ever given much thought to because she’d always been so sure of what was and wasn’t, but now she wasn’t sure about anything. Anything but the fact that the world was running on limited time, that is. Which shouldn’t have been a new concept to her as she had lived under the threat of the world being destroyed before, but she had been able to do something about it then. She couldn’t now. How could she even _begin_ to try when the person who was doing the destroying was a – a –

False…god?

A horrible shudder ran down her spine and extended along the rest of her body, ending in a painful spark at the tips of a hand that wasn’t there, and she spent a long time trying to distract herself from thinking about him in detail. Not his face, not his figure, not his clothes, not his _voice_ , not his name – _names_. None of it

But she still kept him in the back of her mind as a concept, in a way, because she was still worrying about death because of him. It felt like something she ought to be thinking about now, dangerously close as it seemed. How scared should she be of death? Dying was terrifying, there were no ifs about that, but she didn’t know what waited after. Should she try and be comforted by the idea of being with the people she knew and loved again in a world that was much better than this, or should she resign herself to knowing that there was nothing and that the end was just the end because there was nothing and no one waiting for her.

Nesiaris closed her eyes and fought back many things. Then she laid back down and pulled the sheets over her, hoping that sleep would come quickly to distract her.

There was a small part, however, that held onto the idea that there was a sort of life after death, somewhere that everyone went to be with their loved ones again. She wished for it, if only because she couldn’t stand the idea of her father not existing anymore. He deserved a paradise. He deserved happiness and peace and being able to just _exist_ without fear, not an end. So, for his sake, and for the sake of everyone else she loved, she hoped. Only a little.


	8. Chapter 8

Nesiaris hated the late night. Usually she slept through the night and so didn’t have to deal with it, but tonight she’d had a bad dream. She couldn’t remember what it was, but the feeling of panic lingered. That feeling, however, was quickly forgotten as she became more and more aware of how silent it was.

It wasn’t complete silence; there was still the cricket song outside and her mother’s gentle snores inside. The aravel creaked in odd places when the wind blew past, and she could hear the tinkle of the windchimes that hung outside the cabin’s door and the leaves rustling in the trees nearby. It wasn’t complete silence, but there was _a_ silence that scratched at her skill and made her uneasy and upset, and it was only during the late night when the whole clan was asleep that she could not escape this silence.

Nesiaris twisted and turned in her bed, trying to focus on any one noise at all, but it was futile. The uncomfortable sensation grew and grew until it was the only thing she could think about, because this silence _wasn’t supposed to exist._

She pressed her face into her pillow and resisted the urge to scream, because she knew she could do nothing about it. She’d tried. So many times.

About two years ago, she had drunk from the Vir’Abelasan and taken the memories that it held, acting, she supposed, as a vessel of sorts. The memories often took the form of voices that were constantly speaking, sometimes to her but oftentimes only to each other. Sometimes the effect of the Vir’Abelasan was more subtle, such as feelings of vague déjà vu or wistful nostalgia whenever she entered elven ruins, even if she’d never even seen them before. Most of the time it was more obvious, such as when she found that she was able to read and understand the ancient elvhen language perfectly, despite much of the knowledge of it having been lost to the Dalish.

It had been disorienting at first, having so many voices bouncing around her head, but she had learned to live with it. Soon enough she had become used to having the voices as background noise in her mind, a quiet buzz that overtime became comforting rather than annoying. She’d established a sort of relationship with the Well of Sorrows, as much as one could with a magic entity living in their mind (though the word “entity” didn’t feel right enough to describe the Well, but it was the closest word for it), and in time they became as comfortable with her she’d become with them. Nesiaris, eager to learn, had called on their knowledge and memories often, and they had been eager to teach. She’d shared the Well’s knowledge with the Dalish, advancing their knowledge and understanding of their ancestors far beyond what they had found on their own, and the Well had been beyond happy. She’d thought they’d had a good relationship.

And then they disappeared, and she didn’t know why.

At first, she’d thought that it had been her fault, though what exactly she’d done she didn’t know. Had she offended them in some way? She didn’t have any clue on how to remove them from herself, and she still felt the effects of the Well whenever anything in the elvhen language was translated for her or even in the way she could still speak it fluently as if she’d known it from birth, so it hadn’t physically left her. They’d gone silent, then, but she didn’t know why. Then, she thought maybe _he_ had done something. Maybe he’d taken the Well when he’d taken her arm and only left her with the effects of it. Or maybe he’d tampered with them, made them go silent so they couldn’t help her anymore. But, that wasn’t right, either. He’d have been more thorough, she thought.

So, she didn’t know what was wrong. She’d tried to reach out to them, to call them back to her and make up for whatever may have gone wrong, but all she ever got back was silence. She couldn’t even feel their presence.

She had been angry at first when she realized they weren’t going to answer, because she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do if they didn’t tell her? Then she was desperate and afraid, because they hadn’t been silent once since she’d drank from the well, so their silence could only mean something very bad had happened. Eventually she just stopped trying, but didn’t stop feeling so deeply sad and hurt and empty. A part of her was missing and there wasn’t anything she could do.

She hated the late night because it was just another reminder of how damned useless she was.

Though she tried hard not to, she started to cry again. Then, as if on cue, she felt Cole’s presence enter the room, slowly and with care. There was a pressure on her bed, so light that she would have missed it if she weren’t so used to it, and then Cole’s cool hands were on her shoulder and in her hair, shushing her like a parent to their child. She kept her face pressed against the pillow; ashamed, though not for the first time. She didn’t always like for Cole to show up when she was like this, but Cole wasn’t always content to leave her alone. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen her broken up before, but this was a pain that he couldn’t fix, and she knew it frustrated him as much as it did her.

She was torn between telling him to leave or not, but in the end let him stay, as she usually did. She needed the brief comfort. Beyond that, she needed to go back to sleep. Nightmare or dream, she didn’t care what came with it so long as she wasn’t thinking about the heavy absence of the Vir’Abelasan anymore. Cole always brought sleep with him, because he knew it was the only way to help her anymore. She rejected everything else.

Soon after Cole appeared, Nesiaris began to calm down, sinking quickly into the drowsiness that she so craved. Her mind, made sluggish and dull by the magic Cole had weaved, focused only on the feeling of his hand stroking her hair. She was certain he was humming something, but the tune muddled together under the haze. She closed her eyes and slipped easily away.


	9. Chapter 9

“Would you like to dance?”

Nesiaris looked up from a very delicious array of chocolates and found another elf standing in front of her, They were dressed in a loose white blouse and high black pants, and their mask was painted blue and gold with golden crescent moons lining the lower part, glowing and dancing as if they were really part of the night sky. Behind it, their eyes were…a color that Nesiaris understood but could not find the words to describe. They grinned almost sheepishly at her, giving a little half-bow.

“Dance?” they asked again, gesturing back to the dance floor. “The next song is slow.”

Nesiaris made a show of considering dancing over devouring the whole chocolates table, but she ended up agreeing anyway. The elf perked up and held out a hand to her, then led her to the edge of the dance floor. The current song was only just starting to end, and many elves were making their ways off the dance floor and to somewhere they could rest. The previous song had been very fast and very long, so it was no wonder so many of them were lunging for the first chair they could find. Nesiaris’ partner guided her along to the spaces the others had left once the song ended.

Nesiaris glanced around at the crowd as she and her partner took their spot on the floor. Some were very tame in their choice of clothes, wearing simple outfits with simple masks. Others were more vibrant, with outfits straight from fairytales. Those who wore the most outlandish, costume-eqsue outfits stayed off to the sides as they took up way too much space for dancing, but the trade-off was that they got to bask in attention. The masks varied as well, some taking the shape of animals such as vibrant birds or halla with intricate horns, others emulating figures from the stories of city and Dalish elves. Some were lined with bright feathers on top, others had sparkling beads hanging from the bottom. It was all beautiful enough to take her breath away.

She had been at a masquerade once before, but it had been nowhere near as lovely as this. The palace they were in, for one, was distinctly elven, not human, and teemed with magic, evident mostly in the spirits that freely floated in and out of the rooms without a care in the world. All of the guests were elves as well, which made it even better. There were no stupid political games, either, which had probably been the second worst part of her last experience. She could actually fully _enjoy_ the party this time, which was apparently a foreign concept to Orlesian humans.

“We did this all first, you know,” her partner said as the new song started up. An old Dalish song. “Masquerades, I mean. That’s an elven thing. The humans just took it and slapped their names on it.”

“Among other things,” Nesiaris muttered. “It’s nice to be able to do this kind of thing more often. The last time I was at a party this size was during the last Arlathven, and there are not enough of those at all.”

“I guess you could say the way things are now is like one big never-ending Arlathven.”

Nesiaris grinned. “I like that.”

“I knew you would.”

She placed her arms around their partner’s shoulders, and they in turn joined their hands together around her back and held her close. It wasn’t an intimate gesture the way humans might have interpreted it, just one of comfort. Many of the other pairs on the floor were doing the same, simply at ease with the person in front of them, even if they were complete strangers.

Speaking of…Nesiaris peered up at her partner and tried to figure out who they were. They felt somewhat familiar, but at the same time not familiar at all, and she was sure she’d never seen anyone with those eyes before. She wasn’t sure either if they were Dalish or not due to the lack of any visible vallaslin, which made it even more curious where she might have known them from.

“What’s your name?” she finally asked, only to receive a sly smile in return.

“You know.”

Nesiaris rolled her eyes. “I didn’t ask you for the fun of it.”

“The whole point of a masquerade is to not be known. Duh.”

If that was the case, half the people in attendance had done a very poor job. “Yet you know me.”

“Of course I do.”

“That’s not fair.”

They simply shrugged and didn’t look like they cared all that much. “Your name is too famous. Do you want a new one? Was can come up with a fake one just for tonight.”

“Well it’s pointless _now_.”

“Oh, now you’re just grumpy.”

She stuck her tongue out at them, then found herself feeling a little lighter when they laughed.

The two of them fell silent for a moment and Nesiaris took that time to observe the people around her again. Most of them were strangers to her as well, but there were a few she recognized. Just a few feet away she saw Briaren dancing with a girl she fancied and looking red as a cherry under her mask. Had Nesiaris caught her eye, she would have given her an encouraging thumbs-up. Or, maybe a teasing kissy face instead. On the edge of the dance floor she spotted Brahlen with a group of older elves, some Dalish and others not, swapping personal stories between themselves with their masks hanging loosely around their necks. Just a little ways away from him were Hanarel and Alaron, all but collapsed on the floor after having danced themselves half to death during the previous song. And then, at the very end of the dance floor in a space all their own, she saw her mother and father, dancing close together with their heads bowed and whispering who knew what to each other. Her mother was in a simply burgundy dress, which was a rarity for her, and her father was in all black with a mask shaped like a bird. Nesiaris averted her eyes, sensing that this was a very private moment for the two of them.

“It’s nice,” her partner piped up, and when she turned back she saw that they were also looking wistfully at the people around them. “Better than nice.”

“It is,” she agreed, and knew that they were talking about more than just this party – it was the fact that they were able to have this party at all. It was the fact that the people here were a mix of different Dalish clans and of non-Dalish elves. It was the fact that beyond this palace was a whole swath of land that was all theirs and only theirs. It was the fact that they were able to erect cities and villages, and that the Dalish were no longer forced to wander the world and the city elves no longer had to live in slums, and that they could just breathe without having to worry about how offensive it was to do so. It was a world all their own where they could just _be_.

“I can’t even remember the last time I’ve felt this good,” her partner mumbled. “I mean, Creators, I –”

Nesiaris flinched. More than just a flinch, it felt like she’d been slapped, and suddenly everything felt different. Uncomfortable and wrong, and she felt wrong. An imposter, or an outsider who didn’t belong, who had lied her way in, who was still lying.

She tried to hide it all and hide the fact that she’d even reacted in the first place, but it was of course far too late, and her partner wasn’t stupid. “Oh,” they said quietly, apologetically. “I forgot. You don’t like that word.”

She didn’t respond. It wasn’t as simple as just like or dislike, but how could she even begin to explain it to them? They would hate her.

So she didn’t. She didn’t say anything, just pulled herself closer so she had a reason not to look at them. She watched everyone else instead, but now all their faces were turned away from her. Could she blame them?

Except…

Except there was one that wasn’t turned from her. There, in the crowd along the outside of the dance floor, stood a man who watched her with far more intensity than anyone in her dreams had ever –

A dream ever –

_Those eyes_

It clicked.

And then she was awake, gasping and flinching violently in the aftermath of having thrust herself from the dream with so much force and _fear_ that it left her head spinning. She looked around wildly, heart beating too hard and too fast behind her ribs and terror running through her veins. She was only able to begin to calm down when she was certain that she was in her bed in her aravel in her clan’s campsite and that everything was very, very real. Even then she was still afraid – beyond afraid.

Nesiaris sat trembling all over and was far more awake than she had any right to be. The last moments of the dream were still clear in her mind (far more than they had any right to be), and she ran and re-ran through them over and over again. She had seen him. _Him_ him. And not in the ways she had before in her dreams, as a figment of her mind that was created from old memories or new fears. No, he had been clear as day, clear as anything, sharper than any dream. Sharper than anything. It was –

She shook her head, harder than she should have, and could not continue that line of thoughts, because if she did it, and if what she was thinking was true, it could kill her, or might as well. She tried very, very hard to convince herself that the dream had just been weird this one time, that it had conjured up something so intense just to scare her. That made sense, didn’t it?

She did her very best to convince herself, and eventually, after she’d calmed down and could think clearer, she did believe (mostly) that it was just a bad dream. But she did not sleep again that night, and was very much awake when her mother woke up and was awake for breakfast and for lunch and for dinner and was awake all until the next night where she still did not go back to sleep until Filora did.


	10. Chapter 10

Nesiaris did not go to sleep easily anymore. Though she tried her very best to convince herself that what she’d experienced in her dream was just some twisted prank her own mind was playing on her, she was still nervous. Beyond nervous. For the past few days, she’d ended up lying awake more than she did asleep, trying to find ways to keep away bad dreams. She tried playing the Chasind song Cole had sang for her over and over in her mind, but it didn’t have the same effect as hearing Cole sing it right beside her. She tried asking Filora for dreamwillow tea, but her anxiety bled through the tea’s effects. She once briefly considered saying a prayer as she lay in bed, but that idea had been quickly shot down. The last time she’d done that was when she had been very young. Besides, who was there to pray to?

She did not sleep through the day anymore aside from accidental and fitful naps. At night she did her best to focus very intently on her mother’s breathing in order to be lulled to sleep, and while she dreamed, her body was tense, ready to throw her back out into reality if she were to see _him_ again in any form. Even thinking of the possibility of it made her grow tense. Filora noticed, as mothers tended to notice everything, but Nesiaris deflected whenever she was asked about her behavior. No, there’s nothing wrong, she would say. No, I’m fine. It’s just the pains.

Her arm. Good for nothing now but as an excuse for her behaviors. Filora never questioned anything when it came to that.

In the days that passed, however, she did not experience what she had that previous night. And so, slowly, she was able to relax again, somewhat, and the dreams came a little easier. It was just been a trick of the mind, that was all.

That was all.

Nesiaris was in the small, barren room again, smaller now, staring at the sword again. The shemlen who kept her here had berated her just a short while ago, first trying to appeal to her with honeyed words and the promise of food, but then they quickly dissolved into furious insults when she continued to stay still and silent. They’d left, throwing the play of whatever food they’d brought on the ground. She could still smell the meat, strong as if it were in the room with her. It made her stomach growl. She was certain they’d intended to torture her in this way.

Shortly after the shemlen left she felt another presence, one with power like red lightning. He didn’t enter the room, nor did he say anything, but she knew he was there watching her. He’d kill her if he could. Run her through with a shard of red lyrium, maybe. Make her twisted like him – or, no, he would hate that, wouldn’t he? He’d make her a slave. He was a magister, after all, and wouldn’t it just be the greatest punishment? The proud Dalish girl turned slave to an ancient Tevinter magister. How funny.

Nesiaris watched the sword, ignoring Corypheus the way she would ignore a fly outside a window. From the sword she could also feel a sort of power. It was much more subtle, but there, like a slow swirling vortex. She wondered vaguely what would happen if she took the sword for herself. She could do whatever she wanted. It was her power, after all, not theirs. She could escape before they came to put their chains on her.

She inched closer.

She could go home. Maybe she could protect her family better with this sword.

Closer. She reached out for the hilt.

She could make them all pay, too, if she wanted. Rain hell on them. Or, maybe the loss of the sword would be punishment enough. They didn’t deserve it, rotten bastards. They didn’t deserve any of it.

Then, her hand paused, hovering just centimeters away from the sword’s hilt. She had spotted something in the blade. Nesiaris planted her hand on the floor beside the hilt instead and leaned over, over, over until she was staring down at it and her reflection was staring up at her.

Except, that wasn’t her. What she saw it the blade was a Nesiaris who was all wrong. Her features had something subtly off about them in a way that made her look not at all elven, but that wasn’t the worst part. She saw immediately that she had no vallaslin, but even that was not the worst part (though it did make her stomach twist), because soon after that she noticed that her ear poking out from behind her hair looked wrong, misshapen. And, though she knew that she shouldn’t, she reached up and pulled back her hair.

There was her ear, mangled and brutalized. It had been docked, and that alone made her want to puke. Then she noticed that her ear had been shaped into a crude but unmistakable curve, and everything fit into place.

Nesiaris let out a chocked scream and fell back, kicking the sword away from her.

And then she wasn’t in the room anymore but found herself jolting backwards in her chair in the library, the book with the little mirror sitting haphazardly on the table in front of her. Immediately she reached up for her ears, groping at them until she was certain without a doubt that they were _not_ curved at _all_.

“Are you alright?”

Nesiaris jumped again, turning to face the spirit that had appeared beside her. It watched her with a cool, indifferent air, as it if didn’t care whether she was or not.

“I-I’m looking for something,” Nesiaris stuttered. “Something that I lost.”

The spirit that was the dull color of sorrow bobbed its head in a nod. “I know where it is.”

“You…do?”

Another nod. “Come with me,” it said, and barely waited for her to stand before turning and floating away between the bookshelves. Nesiaris ran to keep up because the spirit was moving too faster, faster than she was used to from them. She ran past shelves of books with golden spines and shelves of books with iridescent faces, and the ones full of books that once opened sang their impossibly long stories, and ones of books that gave vague premonitions of the future. As they continued, the shelves began to change, turning from rich brown to ashy gray to bone white, and the books on them became sparser and more worn than the rest, some even falling apart. Then, the shelves were completely empty, and Nesiaris was very aware of how empty and quiet and bleak this section of the library was. She did not think she was supposed to be here at all. Where was this spirit taking her?

Eventually the shelves ended, and there was a long stretch of empty, foggy space before it was broken by a tall structure in the distance. Nesiaris couldn’t even tell what it was until she was nearly on top of it, and by then it was too late.

She skidded to a halt in front of a ginormous eluvian, falling on her ass in the process. The eluvian reached up to the sky, its surface dark and shimmering and sinister. She scrambled away from it and turned to catch herself just before she fell into the Vir’Abelasan, though it had become an empty pit now. The spirit floated silently beside the barren pool, just watching her.

“Wh-why did you bring me here?” Nesiaris asked, getting up and hastily stepping away from the eluvian and the well.

“What you lost. It’s here.”

“ _Here?_ ”

The spirit nodded and gestured to the eluvian. “Here.”

Nesiaris looked back at the eluvian and shuddered. She took a stiff, hesitant step towards it. If it would help her find what she’d lost then she’d use it, but she wouldn’t be happy about it. Slowly, she made her way up to stand in front of the eluvian and stared at it’s dark, rippling surface, feeling as though she might be swallowed in at any moment.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, a figure began to fade into place, and as it became more and more defined Nesiaris realized that it was her. Actually her, all elf, all Dalish. A perfect reflection. Except, the reflection was missing an arm.

Nesiaris flinched, and for a moment was very awake and very aware, but the moment passed in the blink of an eye and she was back under the dream’s magic. She moved her left arm and watched as the reflection moved her stump in turn. She moved her right arm, and so did the reflection. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, and the reflection’s expression became irritated. Again, she flinched.

The reflection looked away in annoyance. Then, as it looked off to Nesiaris’ side, its eyes widened, first in shock, then horror. When it turned back to Nesiaris, there was a warning in them.

And then the reflection leaned forward and _out of the eluvian_ , reaching for Nesiaris who was frozen in shock. As the reflection exited the mirror, it began to change. Its hand came out first, and where it had been perfectly clean just a moment ago, it was now covered in blood. The reflection gripped Nesiaris’ shoulder, using her to pull itself out, and she shuddered at feeling the blood seep through her tunic and trickle down her arm. The rest of the reflection’s head and torso exited the eluvian, bloody, bruised, and sweaty, wearing battered and dirty armor in place of the clothes Nesiaris wore. Its eyes were still wide, so wide they might have popped out of its head, and its skin had gone sickly pale. What finally made Nesiaris jump back (or try to; the reflection’s grip was much too strong) was when she felt a familiar shock and then sense of burning that started at her elbow and trailed to her fingers. She looked down and found that the reflection had regained its left arm, except now the arm was glowing green and shook with every violent pulse of energy that went through it, and which subsequently went through Nesiaris who was now frantically trying to pull away.

The reflection leaned in closer and closer until it was just inches away and Nesiaris could feel its labored breath on her face. It opened its mouth and whispered, “He’s here.”

Nesiaris whipped around, the reflection recoiling at her movement. She did not see him before she woke, but felt the same intensity as before, and that was all she needed.

She almost screamed.

The next day after she’d calmed down enough to think (clearly or not), she decided to go against her own wishes: she needed to find out if he was real or not. She _needed_ to know. If it was just her mind making him up, she could fix that, somehow. If it wasn’t…

She needed to know either way. She needed to know.

She didn’t want to.

Nesiaris decided to seek him out in her dreams and to try and not run immediately when she encountered him next time, but that was the extent of how much she would think about him. For the rest of the day she did her very best to distract herself. That night, she tried to look out for him and that intensity as much as she could, but he didn’t appear in her dreams then. Nor did he appear the next night, or the next, or the next, or the next.

By the time he did show up again, she’d almost forgotten her whole plan of not running away.


	11. Chapter 11

She was in front of the forbidden part of the forest again, though this time she stood on solid ground rather than in the treetops. Nesiaris stared into its darkened depths, almost mesmerized. She wasn’t supposed to go in there, she knew that. She’d heard the stories of the great beast that hunted down anyone who stepped foot into its territory and devoured them whole. Even if one managed to evade the beast, somehow, there was a man living inside who’d steal the heart right out of a person’s chest and return them to the world as near lifeless shells. Or there was the woman who offered shelter from the Beast, then made a person her slave if they took a sip of the water she offered. Or there was the being that tormented people in their dreams, creating nightmares so great that people went mad from refusing to go back to sleep. Even the trees themselves would try to kill any poor wanderer, growing their roots around a person’s body as they slept and swallowing them into the earth if they did not wake up in time.

She wasn’t supposed to go in there. She took a step forward anyway.

 _You’re going to kill yourself_ , said the voices of her clanmates far off in the distance. _What are you doing? You’re going to die._

Maybe she…

Did she want to?

She didn’t know.

Nesiaris glanced back for only a moment, then turned to face the dark trees again. She took a very deep breath, then began to walk.

The temperature dropped the moment she stepped across the border. She shuddered but kept walking, trying to ignore the gooseflesh rising on her arms. As she walked, she noted how quiet everything was. No birds, no little animals, not rustling of the leaves overhead. Even the voices of her clanmates, who had been begging her to turn back, became quieter and quieter until she couldn’t hear them at all. The only sounds came from the crunch of dead leaves under her feet and her own nervous breathing. She couldn’t see the sky.

Suddenly, she felt it: something was watching her. Something dangerous. The stories of the Beast popped into her mind and she felt a sharp chill run down her spine. She was certain without a doubt that this was what was watching her, but she didn’t turn to look at it. Maybe if she didn’t, it wouldn’t attack her.

Foolish thinking, of course, but it kept her moving.

She continued on and still felt the weight of the Beast’s gaze on her back. It was silent as it followed her. The air around her grew colder and colder until she was puffing out thick curls of mist, and the atmosphere seemed to get heavier and heavier with the weight of her anticipation. Nesiaris’ breathing was getting louder, and she nearly ran into a tree because she was more focused on keeping track of the Beast than watching where she was going (though trying to track it was impossible, anyway. It was everywhere all at once. It was the forest itself, and the sky above her, and the ground below her).

Then, a sharp snap of a branch. Nesiaris jumped and whipped around.

Mistake.

The forest behind her had gone pitch black, as if a dark void had come and swallowed up the whole world. Above – high, high above her – was the only source of light: two gigantic eyes that shone like stars. For a moment, they were dazzling. Beautiful.

Then she felt their gaze focus on her, like a string pulling taught through her body, piercing through her chest and head and hand, and she felt it’s _hunger_ , she felt it’s _desire_ to hurt, and then one by one more and more eyes appeared, each new gaze spearing through her body and freezing her in place. Then, finally, the creature opened its wide, drooling mouth to reveal rows upon rows of impossibly sharp teeth. The beast grinned, if such a thing could, and growled, stepping forward form the darkness and taking the shape of a giant, twisted wolf with blood red eyes. This was what broke the spell. Nesiaris stumbled back one step, then another, watching while the wolf slowly stalked toward her.

Then, it screamed. Nesiaris turned and ran.

Running through this part of the forest was not at all easy. The other part she’d known as well as she knew her own limbs. She’d known where to step and which tree branches would support her weight versus those that wouldn’t, and she knew where there was solid, sturdy ground and where the earth became a maze of roots and burrows. This part of the forest shifted constantly under her feet; roots sprung up where she was certain there had been none just a second ago, branches thicker than herself snapped as soon as a toe touched it, holes appeared just in time for her to either trip over them or narrowly avoid falling into the seemingly bottomless pits. The trees close in around her at times, and at other times seemed too far apart to keep her safe. Sometimes, when she thought she might be getting away from the Beast, a new tree sprung up right in front of her.

She kept going. She kept going.

The rational part of her, however, knew that running was ultimately futile. The Beast was toying with her. Something that big would have caught up with her in mere seconds had it really wanted to. It must have been having such fun now, watching her run as hard as her little body could go, knowing that she was only attempting to delay the inevitable. She shouldn’t have turned around. Why had she turned around?

Soon enough she reached a dead end in the form of a wall of earth far too high to climb over fast enough (she’d tried) and so wide that it seemed to stretch on indefinitely. The end.

Nesiaris whipped around and pulled out her knife, holding it in front of her as the Beast advanced. It was barely a toothpick compared to the monster, but it was all she had. She thought maybe she could take out one of its eyes, at least.

The Beast stalked towards her, so painfully slowly, that mad grin still on its maw. Nesiaris backed up until she was flush against the wall, doing her best not to drop her knife despite how badly she was shaking. The world was getting darker, darker, swallowed up by the Beast until all she saw were its eyes its eyes its eyes

and smile.

Then, a sound. A _snap_ , just like before, that damned noise that had made her turn in the first place. She turned this time, too, obviously not having learned her lesson, looking to the left where the noise had come from, and the Beast looked as well. What she saw made her blood run cold all over again.

There, stepping out from behind the tress, was an elf who didn’t belong. There, staring at the Beast, was Solas.

He looked at the Beast for a long time, seeming to be stunned and confused and upset all at once. His brow furrowed, crumpling the scar on his forehead that was far too perfect for a dream. He was still clad in armor for an ancient time that was too detailed to come from the mind of someone who had only ever seen him in it once.

Then he looked at her. Taught string.

Nesiaris stumbled away from him, tripping over her feet, and with that nearly tumbled out of the dream, but she remembered only just in time that this was what she’d been waiting for. This was it, and she needed to stay here, despite everything in her screaming to run away. She needed to be sure that it was _him_.

The dream flickered only for a moment, then stabilized again. The Beast melted away, knowing that the nightmare had ended and a new one was beginning. Nesiaris barely noticed. Her focus was entirely on Solas, her heart beating harder than it had even while she had been running. He looked at her like a thirsty man would to an ocean. She struggled to even keep her eyes on him.

Nesiaris stood there fighting with her body for what seemed like forever. Her whole body was a ball of tension, ready to turn tail and run, but she needed to go forward. Just getting her foot to move at all was a struggle, but she managed it in the end, and then she managed another step, and another. In this way she slowly walked towards Solas who stood stock still, his gaze never leaving her. There was a new look in his eyes. She didn’t let go of the knife.

The space between them got smaller and smaller, and it felt as if the air got thinner with it. Nesiaris stopped, finally, still leaving a considerable amount of space between them. It was as close as she dared to go. If he reached out to grab her then she would have enough time to run. If he did… _other_ things, the space wouldn’t matter anyway.

They stood in silence, taking in the other’s appearance, and the fact that they were there at all. Nesiaris gripped the handle of her knife so tightly her knuckles went white while with her other hand she reached out towards his chest. He didn’t flinch when her hand pressed against the cool metal of his armor, but she did. She _felt_ it as well as if her own real hand from her real, sleeping body had touched it, and she felt the way his power and his presence pulled at everything in the dream. He was sharp and grounded and powerful and _damn all the gods he was real he was real and he was IN HER MIND –_

Nesiaris snapped violently out of her nightmare, screaming and screaming and crying so hard and calling for her mother who immediately woke with a nasty start. Filora stumble out of bed and hurried to her daughter’s side, terrified herself at the sudden outburst. She took Nesiaris in her arms and did her best to calm her when she began to hyperventilate so hard she was sure she would die right there, and Filora continued to hold her afterward as she wailed into her pillow and shook with anger and pain and so much _fear_. Filora climbed into the bed with her and sat holding her to her heart and gently rocking her and shushing her with promises that everything would be okay.

Nesiaris did not believe her.


	12. Chapter 12

After that night, Nesiaris did not sleep. At least, not voluntarily. Sometimes she would doze off into fitful naps, but she would never sleep longer than an hour at the most, often scaring herself out of it in fear of another meeting with that damned intruder.

She was horrified and scared that he might be waiting for her again, but behind that she was also furious. Her dreams had become a refuge, the one place she could go and be safe from all the sad eyes and the inconspicuous whispers and the letters and the pleading for her to please go outside and please eat, and safe from everything that reminded her of _him_ and what he’d _done to her_ and what he’d _put her through_. Now the very man she’d been trying to avoid harder than anyone else had invaded that space. Now it was more dangerous to be in her own mind than the be out of it. That wasn’t right!

Yet, she did not try to fight for it. She didn’t have the energy, or the bravery. She could not face him again. The very thought of seeing him again made her heart rate spike so sharply it left her dizzy and shaking. Even his name scared her.

She’d done her very best since leaving Halamshiral to not think his name or think of anything that had happened over the past few years because of him, but seeing him in the dream had ruined all that. She could not sleep to distract herself anymore, and so all of it came crashing into the front of her mind, shoving aside every pointless thought she’d held onto to distract herself during her waking moment. It all overwhelmed her, but she couldn’t do anything to stop it now. The dam had broken, and the memories would not go back easily. She did not have the strength anymore to force them to.

Among those thoughts and memories was one name, his name: _Solas._

Solas, Solas, Solas. His name was pasted onto every wall and corner and crevice of her mind. No matter what she tried she always ended up turning back to him. He wouldn’t ever leave her alone now.

Nesiaris heard Filora enter the cabin and was briefly taken out of her thoughts. She listened to Filora step over to her bed and set down a bowl of stew, sighing when she saw the breakfast that had barely been touched. Nesiaris had barely had much of an appetite before, but now it had completely disappeared. Trying to eat anything made her feel sick. Well, just about _everything_ made her feel sick now.

She closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. Filora sighed again, a mix of frustration and sadness that Nesiaris could only feel a little bad about, and gently brushed some of Nesiaris’ hair out of her face. Her hand rested a moment on Nesiaris’ shoulder, light enough so as not to disturb her, and then a second later was gone. Filora swapped the bowls, turned, and left the cabin. Nesiaris opened her eyes immediately. Even just closing them for a second left her vulnerable.

Well, she was vulnerable anyway, not just to sleep.

She had done her best to forget everything. Now, she remembered all too much. She remembered the first time Solas had walked in her dreams, and she remembered how he had felt so stable and grounded compared to the dream around him, like an anchor in water. She’d felt it every single time they’d dreamwalked, the same way she felt it in her very last dream. She also remembered telling him to never enter her dreams without her permission. He’d promised.

 _Harellan_. Living up to his name.

Nesiaris shuddered. She remembered that, too. Fen’Harel, subject of every little Dalish’s nightmares, and there he’d been the whole time. Right beside her. She felt stupid for not knowing, but then how could she have? He hadn’t been kind enough to hang a sign around his neck. There were things that in hindsight she realized now pointed to him being ancient, but to being a _god_ –

No, not a god. Those didn’t exist, according to him. The knowledge sat bitterly in her mind, but she didn’t want to think about that right now. It only made her upset in a very different way than how Solas did.

Still, she couldn’t have known, but at the same time kicked herself. All the stories said that he’d appear as a humble wanderer, and so he had. The stories said he entered the dreams of elves, and so he had. The stories said that he had little love for the elven kind. So, it seemed, he didn’t. Not for _her_ kind, anyway.

The stories had also painted him as terrifying to encounter, and they weren’t all wrong there either. In his disguise, he hadn’t been so scary, not at all. Without it, he was horrifying. He hadn’t been cruel to her, but she’d seen enough of the way he treated those who got in his way. She remembered how he’d turned qunari into statues without even looking at them…but, right beside that she remembered the way he used to kiss her. She remembered the waves of immense power that emanated from him, but also the way he had always been gentle with her, even at the end. She remembered the cold look in his eyes when he’d turned to her. She remembered how they warmed at the sight of her. She remembered his smiles. She remembered how terrified she was – she is. She remembered how in love she was –

…is?

Nesiaris grimaced and pushed that thought far, far away from her.

How could she love someone who was going to kill her world? Because that was what Solas was going to do: he would burn her world to ash in order to bring his own back. Her mind had blocked out any extensive imaginings on what it would be like before, for her sake. It did no such thing now.

He said that he would tear away the Veil, reverse what he had done ages ago. This world wouldn’t survive it – it had barely survived small tears. Demons would run rampant throughout the world, killing as they pleased. Magic would return to all those without it in full force, and that alone would kill more than perhaps even demons would. She had seen how mages who had repressed their magic for years lacked any kind of true control over it. They could kill people without meaning to, unable to keep their magic contained to themselves. Some might accidentally let a demon into their body or have their magic suck them dry of all energy until their emerged a dead husk. Or, they would simply explode. The collateral was the same. It would be a world-wide phenomenon, and she saw half of Thedas being obliterated by this alone.

Then there were the spirits. She imagined they wouldn’t have a very good time with suddenly having their world mashed into Thedas, either. Would they keep their shape? Or would the trauma of it change them? She knew, too, that a spirit’s nature could change depending on what _people_ expected them to be. How many would turn into demons upon first contact? And what if they become more powerful just by the disappearance of the Veil? Would they know what to do with that power, or would it just be another version of non-mages suddenly gaining magic?

And, after the Veil was torn away, what would Solas do? Would he march an army across Thedas to conquer every bit of land as his own? Would he wait for everyone to die? Would he just kill them all himself?

Nesiaris shuddered. She wanted to believe that he wouldn’t, but…she barely knew him, as it turned out. By his own admission, he hadn’t seen any of the people of this world as _people._ Maybe he wouldn’t even bat an eye at the prospect. A wave of his hand and – _poof_ – all gone. No, he wouldn’t even grace them with a gesture. Maybe just an off-handed thought and then the world would be empty. They’d all be gone. Where would they go?

Maybe they’d just cease to be entirely. No afterlife, whatever afterlife there may have been. Just nothingness. She wouldn’t even know it happened. One second everything, and then the next…

Nesiaris stopped there. That thought was far too terrifying and left her on the brink of tears again. She tried to distract herself again. She tried not to fall asleep. She tried.

She did cry.


End file.
